13 Days of Horror: Five Fun Facts About "The Shining!"

With Halloween right around the corner, we're counting down the days by posting five fun facts about our favorite fright flicks.

Today's featured film is "The Shining" (1980).

1. Robert De Niro and Robin Williams were both considered for the role of Jack in "The Shining." But director Stanley Kubrick thought De Niro wasn’t "psychotic" enough after seeing "Taxi Driver" and that Willams was "too psychotic" after seeing his performance in "Mork & Mindy."

2. During the making of the movie, Kubrick would call writer Stephen King at 3:00am and ask him random questions like, "Do you believe in God?"

3. Stanley Kubrick, who’s known for being compulsive, shot the blood pouring from the elevator scene in just three takes … but the shot took 9 days to set up each time and every time the blood came out Kubrick would say, “It doesn’t look like blood.” Overall, the shot took a year to perfect.

4. The maze of snow at the end of the movie was not made of real snow! It was 900 tons of salt and crushed styrofoam.

5. Stephen King tried to talk Stanley Kubrick out of casting Jack Nicholson because he thought that casting a more “normal” looking man, like Jon Voight or Michael Moriarty, would be a better dramatic fit for the storyline of someone descending into madness.